Heroes of the Past, Villans of Today
by RangerOfOlympus
Summary: After the Giant War, no prophecies have been issued predicting the destruction of the world. Until, that is, a never before seen monster begins killing demigods in a little place known as Central City. So what do the demigods do? They send a quest. And guess who's in the frying pan again... If you guessed Percy and Annabeth, you'd be correct!
1. Summer

**Author's Note: This is a crossover between three different things: The Flash, PJO, and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard. Although Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard isn't really prominent. It just gave me the excuse I needed for...shoot. I can't tell you. That'll just spoil the story. Dang it. I'm not really sure when this is supposed to take place, it's just after all the stuff Rick Riordan has written, and also after a few other FanFictions I've written. I hope you enjoy the story! It's full of plot twists. Ooops. I've said too much. ;)**

 **And hey, did anyone notice how on the Story Cover, Barry looks like Zeus in a costume? Could it be evidence of an imminent crossover...? One can hope.**

Percy's POV

My fall break was going just great. And not a sarcastic "just great," I was actually having a good time. I was spending some time at Camp Half-Blood with Annabeth and my other friends and nothing unusually dangerous had happened. Yet.

Surprisingly, Thalia had gotten permission from Artemis to take some time off, so there she was. Nico had also dropped by, if only for a few days.

I had just been training with Annabeth, and I was frustrated by how good Annabeth was with that stinking knife. Every single time she beat me, even though _I_ had the sword.

Annabeth and I went to sit by the lake and were joined by Thalia, Grover, and Nico.

We were just sitting together and enjoying one another's company when Thalia suddenly remarked,

"Hey, Annabeth. Show him that new toy Leo made for you."

Annabeth smiled. "Oh, yeah. You're gonna love this, Percy." She reached up to her neck and touched a small, owl-shaped amulet. When she pressed the glowing jewel in the center, the amulet swiveled around to the back of Annabeth's neck before splitting into two huge bronze wings with a helmet shaped like an owl.

"What?" I exclaimed. "That's awesome! Can you actually fly with those?"

"Yeah. Leo modeled them after those updated wings of Daedalus that we found in the Labyrinth, only he made them so that I don't have to flap my arms to fly."

"Where do I get mine?" I asked eagerly.

She laughed. "You can't, Seaweed Brain. They only work for children of Athena. Something about our power makes the wings compatible with us."

"Not fair," I sighed.

"Awww. You two are just sooo cute." Thalia stood up and began walking away. "Now come on. It's dinnertime, and I'm hungry."

We got up and walked to our respective lines, stomachs growling in anticipation.

Barry's POV

Barry raced through his morning routine. Not like normal raced, though. Like doing everything at six hundred miles per hour raced.

 _I'm gonna be late for work_ , he thought. _I'm the fastest man alive, and yet I'm always late for work! What's up with that?_

By the time he was done, Barry was starving. So, on his way, Barry stopped by a local doughnut place to get a couple boxes. When he was about one hundred yards away from the police station, he stopped. No one _else_ needed to know he was the Flash.

While he was walking to the entrance of the police station, something black whooshed by him. Automatically his senses sped up, but even so, all Barry could see was a blur of black. The load in Barry's arms seemed to grow lighter, and when he looked down, he only had two boxes of doughnuts, instead of three. Barry whipped his head around looking for the culprit, but he could see nothing.

Still confused, Barry continued to walk to work. As soon as he was inside the building, he climbed the stairs to his lab. Stuffing a doughnut in his mouth, Barry sat down to write up a report on a murder that had taken place recently.

The circumstances of the crime were very odd, even by Central City's standards. The victim had serious burns all over his body, almost like what Firestorm could do. But that was impossible. Firestorm wasn't one of the bad guys. There were also large gashes in the body. Barry had found two different types of metals in the corpse and was testing them right now.

Barry was pretty sure that the victim was killed by a metahuman, but not one that he'd seen before.

 _Just great_ , he sighed. Another _evil metahuman._

Then Joe came in through the open door. Noticing what Barry was working on, he exhaled.

"Please tell me we haven't got another one."

"Sorry, Joe," Barry replied. "Another metahuman seems to have gone all evil-maniac-who-likes-to-kill-people."

"Great. Have you been to STAR Labs yet? Cisco and Caitlin should probably know. What do you think this meta can do?"

"It's almost like Firestorm," Barry mused, "but different. More powerful. And there's something else." Barry scooted his chair over to another monitor with the with the results from testing the two metals found in the victim. "I pulled these two samples of metal from the body. One is easily identifiable. It's just plain old steel. But the other….it's nothing that's ever been discovered before."


	2. The Quest Begins

**Author's Note: Anyone care to guess what the mysterious metal is? I'll give you a hint. It starts with** _ **Celestial**_ **and ends with** _ **bronze**_ **. tough one, right?**

 **I'm running out of things to say now, so I'll just say read and review!**

Percy's POV

Camp Half-Blood

I sat alone at my table. Not because I had no friends or anything, just because we had to sit with our brothers and sisters. I was the only son of Poseidon at camp this fall. Of course, there was my brother Tyson, but he was working with my father right now.

When I had only just gotten my food, Chiron came over to my table. I looked up, surprised. Chiron almost never left the head table during meals.

"Percy," he said gravely. "There's a meeting of head counselors in the Big House."

"Right now?" I asked.

"Yes."

I sighed. No dinner for me. I got up and walked out of the pavilion. When I reached the Big House, I realized most of the counselors were already there. As I was sitting down, the rest filed in.

"What's happening Chiron?" Annabeth asked. "What's so important?"

Chiron looked at her sadly and abruptly stated, "A demigod has been murdered in a place called Central City."

Gasps of astonishment echoed around the ping-pong table.

"Who?" Conor choked out.

"We don't know his name," Chiron replied. "One of our satyrs was watching him. He was a senior in highschool, and we think a son of Ares. The satyr witnessed his death and tried to protect him, but there was nothing he could have done against this monster. We don't even know what it is. Apparently it's so old and powerful, even the gods have forgotten it. The beast looks like a normal young man, but when it shows its true form, it has golden flames flickering around his head and hands. It also has a sword, which apparently it can use quite well. So far, the beast hasn't killed any mortals. We assume it's only targets are demigods, but we can't know for sure. If it were to target us here at Camp-Half Blood and at Camp Jupiter, the effects could be catastrophic. I've called you all here today because we need a quest to dispatch this monster. It must take a long time for the monster to reform, as we have never seen the likes of it before. If there are any volunteers, they would be most welcome."

For a moment there was silence. Honestly, I couldn't blame them. We've had way too many wars recently for any of us to want a quest. Used to be, demigods wanted to prove themselves all the time. Now, well...they already had. The ones who had done so the most...many of them were dead. But someone needed to do something, so I stood. "I'll do it, Chiron."

"Very well," Chiron responded somewhat reluctantly. Probably thinking I had done enough already. I had similar thoughts, most of the time. "You should go and visit Rachel, then."

Rachel recently became our Oracle of Delphi. We're all really glad we got a new one, because the old one was ancient. Not like seventy years old ancient, like dead-for-fifty-years ancient. Thankfully, Rachel was my age, which made going to the Oracle slightly less creepy.

As I ducked through the purple curtains covering the entrance to Rachel's cave, I called her name. Her cave, by the way, is a really nice cave. It's got all kinds of modern appliances in it and good lighting, so when you're inside, it doesn't feel like a cave.

"Rachel? Are you here?"

"Of course I am. It's not like the Oracle of Delphi has anywhere else to be. I assume this isn't a social visit," she replied, walking toward me from around a corner.

"No," I answered regretfully. "Not this time."

"Well, then ask away. Hopefully I have some good news this time."

"What do I need to do to stop this monster?"

Rachel's eyes glowed a luminescent green, and thick smoke filled the room that was the same color. The smoke swirled around the two of them until the fog solidified into the figures of Annabeth, Grover, and Thalia standing next to Rachel. The three of them spoke one at a time in the voice of the Oracle.

 _The traitor has united_

 _The golden flames ignited_

 _Powers granted in a flash_

 _Hurry! To the center you must dash_

 _Heroes from two worlds combine_

 _To save all lives, including thine_

The light in Rachel's eyes faded and the smoke dissipated, leaving the two of us alone. Even though I guess technically we were already alone.

"What did I say?" Rachel asked anxiously. "Was it bad?"

"Kind of." I repeated the lines she had said back to her. "Any idea what it means? It sounds almost like another end of the world prophecy."

"Two prophecies boding terrible things for all of mankind in less than five years. That's got to be some kind of record. Anyways, the golden flames probably refers to the monster….and obviously the last line means it'll be the end of world unless you succeed." Catching my look, she quickly added, "Or it could just mean that...um... Yeah, no, that's probably what it means."

"I'd better go," I told Rachel. "The others need to hear what you prophesied."

I turned and pushed my way through the curtains. As I walked back to the Big House, I was inwardly cursing. What. The. Hades! Why does every single end of the world prophecy have to happen in my lifetime? Couldn't it wait fifty or sixty years? Man, when I start looking back at my previous quests with longing...that's not good.

When I was done cursing the gods and Apollo's prophecies, I realized I was at the porch of the Big House. I walked up the stairs and through the door. When I looked at the other counselors, they were all watching me. I said nothing until Chiron prompted me,

"Well, Percy? What is the prophecy?"

When I repeated the lines of the prophecy, murmurs of unrest echoed around the table.

"What does it mean?" demanded Piper, head counselor for Aphrodite. "The two worlds mentioned, which are they? It could be us and the Romans, or…." She trailed off seeing Annabeth shaking her head no. Only a few people had been entrusted with the secret of the Egyptians and Norse that had helped the heroes over the past few years.

"The golden flame must be the monster, and the center Central City, right? But the traitor….who is that?" Annabeth wondered.

"We can't take anything for granted," Chiron reminded everyone. "Whenever we try to interpret prophecies, it always turns out badly. We need to just continue on with the quest. Remember, the prophecies are only meant as an approximate guide. And their words often have a double meaning."

"Chiron's right," Thalia conceded.

"Who will you take, Percy?" Chiron asked me.

"Annabeth," I replied immediately, "and Thalia."

"All right," Chiron agreed. "Be safe."

"But Chiron, what do we call the monster? If even the gods have forgotten it, shouldn't we give it a name so the monster can't be forgotten?" That was Annabeth. In case you couldn't tell from the general...wiseness.

"Call it the _chrysi floga_ , child," Chiron responded.

Annabeth nodded in understanding.


	3. Say What?

**Author's Note:** **Anyone notice how Camp Half-Blood's security has the same name as the organization Layla works for in Arrow? More evidence of an upcoming crossover? Probably not, but we can dream, right? Now, if the movies were actually good, I'd be a lot happier about this, but the movies were terrible. Sorry if you liked them, but they were completely** **inaccurate. But don't let me get started on my rant. I'll go on and on and on and on... I hope you enjoy this chapter. Read and review!**

Argus had just dropped us off a couple miles outside camp with our bags of supplies, including ambrosia, nectar, mortal money, and about twenty drachmas each. For a few minutes we stood there uncertainly.

"Um, where exactly is Central City?" Annabeth asked me.

Shoot. "You don't know?" I asked hopefully.

"No."

"Oh. I thought you'd know for sure."

"Don't you know?" Thalia interjected.

"Well….Chiron didn't exactly tell us where it was, and I've never heard of it before so….No. Not really."

"Great. We're on a quest, already outside of camp, and we don't know where we're going? Wonderful start," Thalia summarized.

That was when the motorcycle squealed to a halt in front of us. A motorcycle that I recognized. The seat seemed to be made of human skin, and it was the size of a baby elephant. Sitting on it, with his sunglasses on sat….

"Ares," I growled. "What do you want?"

Ares sneered at me. "Watch yourself, punk. You're lucky I don't kill you right now."

"So why don't you?" I asked, my hands curling into fists. I didn't like it, but Ares's aura always affects me this way. And for some reason, he always an excuse for not killing me. I think I'm sensing a pattern here…

"Because, unfortunately, I…need you."

I couldn't believe my ears. Before I could ask why, however, Thalia beat me to it. "Why, Lord Ares?"

"Because that monster killed my son."

"So he was your son," I confirmed.

"Yes."

"Well," I said, "I hate to break it to you, but we don't know where Central City is. So, unless you can help us with that…"

"Thankfully, you mortals have the gods looking out for you, or you'd never do anything right." Ares growled. He always growled, sneered, or snarled. He couldn't just talk, like a normal person.

Ares snapped his fingers and sneered one last time as me and my friends began to dematerialize, and my vision faded.

When my friends and I rematerialized, we were in a city with a completely different layout than New York. I looked behind us and saw a coffee shop with a fluorescent sign that read "CC itserJt." Stupid dyslexia. People in the shop were looking at us weirdly.

"Um, guys," I said. "I think we should move."

They turned too and saw the people in the shop pointing at us and oohing and ahhing.

"Yeah, let's go." I repeated. "We should find somewhere to stay."

"Since when do we have money to spare for hotels when we're on a quest?" Thalia chided me.

"Actually, Percy's got the right idea," Annabeth corrected her. "Since we don't have to spend the money on traveling, we should check into a place where we can get some good rest."

We wandered around for a while longer looking for a hotel to check into before we found an okay one. It wasn't like, five-star or anything, but the only other time I'd stayed in a hotel on a quest was when we went into the Lotus Hotel and Casino, which was a trap to keep us there for all of time, so I was okay. Of course, the Lotus Hotel and Casino had awesome rooms filled with amazing games, so maybe it was kind of hard to downsize.

When we were finally checked into our rooms at a Marriott hotel, we turned on the TV to see if anything weird was happening. Apparently, there was nothing at the moment, just boring local news. Although, we did come across quite a few mentions of something called the "Flash." To be honest, we weren't really listening to the dialogue. We were too busy looking for a shot of gold flames.

But, at eleven o'clock, we decided we needed to turn in for the night.

Barry's POV

Barry was surprised. Normally when a new meta decided to murder people, they didn't just murder one and then sink back into oblivion. But that was exactly what this meta had done so far. Barry had told Cisco and Caitlin at STAR Labs about the murder, and its suspicious circumstances, but there was nothing else to go on.

But, today was a new day. Barry wasn't sure whether he should hope the meta did something, so he could find him, or to pray that the meta did nothing.

He was still contemplating this when Cisco's computers went haywire.

"Barry, the meta's trying to kill someone else near that new Marriott hotel in town."

"I'm on it," he replied, already putting on his suit.


	4. Fire in the Building

**Author's Note: Sorry, no quote this time. This chapter's pretty long compared to the others, so go ahead and start reading. Now!**

Percy's POV

I woke up when explosions sounded outside my window.

"What the-," I jumped to my feet and threw open the curtains. Looking down, I saw flashes of golden light as the monster, the _chrysi floga,_ attempted to kill another demigod. Even from here, I could see the glint from the girl's Celestial bronze sword.

"Guys!" I called. "The monster's here!"

My companions rushed into the room and joined me at the window. Then, simultaneously, we all reached for our weapons and then turned and raced out the door.

By the time we were at the stairs, Anaklusmos, or Riptide, was fully extended. Annabeth had two knives. Thalia had brought out Aegis, and was holding her spear. Wait, Annabeth had two knives? When I took a closer look, I recognized one as her usual, Mania Sofias, and the other as Katoptris, Piper's knife. In case you can't speak Greek, Mania Sofias means Wisdom's Fury. Fitting, right?

As we stormed down the stairs I questioned Annabeth,

"Piper lent you her knife?"

"Yeah," she replied. "She said it was for good luck, or something."

By this time, we had reached the hotel's exit. As we opened the door, we immediately rushed to the girl's side.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

"Well," she said, "This thing is seriously freaking me out, but I'm okay. Do you know what this is? Did Chiron tell you?"

"No," Annabeth answered. "It seems even the gods have forgotten about this one. We call it _chrysi floga_."

" _Golden flame_ ," the girl translated effortlessly. "A fitting name, I suppose. I'm Lavender."

"I'm Percy," I said. "This is Thalia and Annabeth." I continued, pointing to each of my friends in turn. "So, any ideas? We got a quest to come here and kill this thing but-,"

I was cut off when a streak of orange lightning appeared and carried the _chrysi floga_ away.

"What the Styx!" I yelled. "Where did that come from?" I turned to my friends. "It would appear that our monster has allies."

"How will we find it now?" Annabeth asked, dismayed.

I turned to Thalia. "Can you track what ever took it?"

She gave me a withering glance. "Of course I can. I'm a Hunter, remember?"

I jogged over to skid marks on the asphalt. "Here's where the trail starts."

Thalia bent over touching the marks left behind. Then, she pointed off to the left. "He went that way."

"Okay, here's the plan," Annabeth began. Technically I was the leader, but I figured a child of the goddess of battle tactics could make a game plan better than I could. "Thalia will lead me to wherever this streak has taken the chrysi floga. I'll get inside using my invisibility hat, and Thalia will," she put extra emphasis on the word, "stay outside. Percy, you'll do some scouting around town to see what you can find out about this streak. Maybe his identity, or at least a clue to it. I'll try to do the same."

Thalia and I nodded. This is why we let Annabeth make the plans. I probably would've just had Thalia track him down and all of us attack before the streak could find out about us. Of course, we might get to do that anyway. I sure hope so.

So, Thalia and Annabeth sprinted (well, speed walked. Who knows how far they had to go?) off to follow the _ravdono_. That's streak in Greek (heh, that rhymes), for those of you who don't know. And don't ask me why we name everything in Greek. I think it's a part of our nature. That, and cursing in Greek.

As for me, I decided I would go to the police station, act like what I saw freaked me out, and see if I could get a name. Mortals are so weak minded, I was sure I could fool them easily.

When I got to the police station, I walked up to a lady sitting behind a desk and asked her some questions. I said I was new in town, and that my name was Peter Johnson. I never thought I would actually use one of Mr. D's "names" instead of my own, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Wanna know how I know that? A Greek dude said it. Hypocrite-ies. Oh, sorry. _Hippocrates_. Disadvantages of dating a daughter of Athena. Anyways, I also acted scared and confused, asking the woman what the heck (I had to catch myself there, I almost said Hades) was going on.

She said that she wasn't very knowledgeable on the subject, as she had only moved here a few months ago. But, she directed me to a black cop who was talking to a man with a CSI briefcase. If you can call a large black box a briefcase.

I started walking over before I suddenly stopped in my tracks. Hang on a second. We just left Lavender back there. Oops. That was a pretty big mistake. By now, people were giving me weird looks, so I kept walking, but I was still mad at myself. The _chrysi_ _flog_ was obviously targeting her, and we just left! I'd have to solve this problem later. I finally made my way to the two men and asked, "Excuse me, but the lady over there told me I could ask you any questions I had about...metahumans?" the word felt strange in my mouth.

The two men exchanged uneasy glances. "Um," the CSI started to reply, but was interrupted by a small man yelling,

"ALLEN! Finish that report!"

"You go on up, Barry," the cop reassured the CSI. "You don't want to make Singh more mad than he already is. I can handle this guy's questions."

"Okay, Joe."

Barry Allen. Joe...someone. I committed those names to memory. A person who didn't have to read people to stay alive might not have noticed anything, but those two were acting suspicious.

"My name's Joe," the cop introduced himself belatedly. "Joe West. You saw the metahuman attack?"

"Yeah. I'm new in town, and hadn't heard anything about this, so it kinda freaked me out. How did this happen?"

Joe explained how a few years ago a particle accelerator exploded, creating a bunch of metahumans, people with powers. Most of these metahumans turned to crime, like the one I saw earlier today. "How did you not hear about this? It was on national news. You been living under a rock or something?"

"When was this again?"

"About two years ago. Why?"

"Oh, I was having some...family issues during that period of time." Which means I was fighting in the Giant War.

Joe nodded. "I can relate to that."

"Anyways, one more thing. I saw some kind of...orange lighting whisk the _chrysi._..I mean, metahuman away. What was that?"

"Oh, that was the Flash," the Joe replied, smiling as if amused. He knows who the "Flash" is, I realized.

While I was still in deep thought, I heard the swirling vortex of wind that is a _ventus_ (we started calling them by their Roman name since it was easier to say than _anemoi thuellai_ ) as one of the officers revealed their true forms. I pulled an Imperial gold dagger out of my belt. All Greeks carried one now, ever since we discovered that they vaporize _venti_ better than Celestial bronze.

Joe stared at it like he saw it for what it was, but all his associates didn't.

"He's got a gun!" one of them yelled.

I charged the _ventus_. "For…," I wasn't sure what to say, since we now knew about Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, and the Norse. "THE GODS!" I finally decided. I plunged the dagger straight into the _ventus's_ chest (or at least where the chest should have been), leaving the monster no time to react. I inwardly sighed in relief as the _ventus_ disintegrated.

Then I noticed all the officers staring at me with their guns drawn. "Get on the ground!" the same small man who yelled at the CSI ordered me.

I looked out the window and saw a wide river glittering just below the window.

I smiled. "Bye," and jumped through the window, plummeting to "my death" hundreds of feet below. But, just before I hit the water, I saw the orange lightning streaking down the building alongside me.

 _If only I could've had that kind of speed in Tartarus_ , I thought as I swam away.


	5. Let's Get 'Em!

**Author's Note: Here I am again! Read and review. Oh, and I know the time streams are a little messed up (thanks a lot, Barry), I just wanted an excuse for Percy and the gang to not have to travel to a different universe and yet be completely unaware of the Flash/metahumans. Thanks for bearing with me.**

When I finally made my way back to the hotel, Annabeth and Thalia were already waiting for me there.

"Really, Percy?" Thalia demanded without ungluing her eyes from the screen. "Did you have to make the mortals think you killed someone else?"

"Not my fault!" I protested. "There was a _ventus_ trying to kill _me_. Besides, they think I'm dead. I jumped into the river. And how did you know it was me? They didn't get a picture of my face, did they?"

"No," Annabeth answered for her. "But as soon as we heard the _jumped into the river part_ , it kind of gave you away."

"Whatever," I replied impatiently. "I went to the police station to see what I could find out, and I met two people who definitely knew who and what that ravdono was. Apparently, he's this thing called a metahuman, a person with powers." I explained to them what Joe West had told me about the particle accelerator and metahuman villains. "But," I resumed, "The cop I talked to, Joe West, was standing next to this other guy named Barry Allen. And they both knew who "the Flash" was. I could see it written all over their faces."

Annabeth got that brooding look that she makes when she starting to figure things out. "Thalia and I tracked the _ravdono_ to a science laboratory called STAR Labs. When I went inside, I could hear voices, so I followed them up to this circular room. When I peeked inside, I saw two people there: a redheaded woman and a man with shoulder-length black hair. They were both discussing the "Flash" in surprisingly loud voices. They mentioned two names: Barry and Joe. You think it could be the same people?"

"It must be," Thalia concluded. "Which means that those people in STAR Labs have the _chrysi floga_."

"But what if they're just mortals?" I protested.

"Then they've allied themselves with the wrong people," Thalia replied. "This wouldn't be the first time mortals have worked for the bad guy. Remember Atlas?"

Annabeth and I winced, remembering the weight of the sky on our shoulders. Literally.

"So what's the plan?" Annabeth asked.

"You have to ask? We have to attack," I finished firmly.

"Yes, but how do we do that?"

"Um, go back to STAR Labs, charge in there, and use the swords and knives...and spears."

Annabeth sighed. "This is why I'm the strategist. But, that was essentially my plan too, so I guess we're going with that."

I smiled. "Let's do this."

Thalia and Annabeth led me down the same path they took when they were tracking the _ravdono_. After quite a long walk, we finally reached STAR Labs. When we were there, I looked up in amazement. STAR Labs was a huge, circular building with four towers and...were those burn marks?

Annabeth pivoted to face Thalia and I, who were standing behind her. "So, this time, the invisibility hat won't do us any good, as all three of us need to get in there. Besides, I'm pretty sure this place has good security. Percy, perhaps if the plumbing were to provide a distraction."

"On it," I closed my eyes, concentrating on the sea, water, anything with liquid. I could sense the water rushing through the pipes in STAR Labs. I concentrated harder on that water, and there was a tugging sensation in my gut. "It's done," I told Annabeth confidently. "Let's go."

Annabeth took the lead again, showing us straight to a small door with the STAR Labs insignia.

"Seriously?" I commented. "This entire big building and this is the entrance?" My surprise increased as Annabeth pushed on the door and it swung open. I glanced at her. "It was unlocked? Forget what you said about security."

"Yeah, I know. It was unlocked the first time, too. I just thought maybe they had high-tech locks that would lock the door as soon as an unknown person approached the door. Guess not."

A small stream of water came out of the door when it was open, and the girls looked at me pleadingly. Annabeth batted her eyelashes. "It would be a shame if we were to fall during the attack because our shoes were wet."

"Fine," I sighed. I held out my hand and the water parted around us like it had hit an invisible wall. "Satisfied?"

The girls smiled at me before moving into the hallway. I followed them with Riptide in my hand. "Where should we start looking?" I asked Annabeth quietly.

"I think we should go up to the room I was in before. That seemed to be the main place where everyone hung out," she replied.

So we walked. And walked and walked and walked up a winding concrete hallway before we could hear voices over the roaring water.

"What the heck, Cisco?" a deep voice demanded. "I thought you were like some master technician! So why is there water everywhere?"

"I don't know!" another voice shouted back. "There's no reason why the pipes should've exploded, they just did. I can't even shut the water off!"

We could hear a third voice trying to placate the two men, but to no avail. I smirked as the deep voice shouted a few choice words about STAR Labs and egotistic inventors.

While the three people inside the room screamed profanities and insults at each other, Thalia, Annabeth, and I snuck over to the side of the wall so we could surprise them. Everyone took out their weapons. I held up my hand and counted silently, One, two, three!

"YAAAAAAAA!" we screamed as one, charging into the room.

Seeing that all three of the people we heard were in one side room with a single door, I held out my hand raising a wall of water in front of the exit. I pushed all other water in the room out into the hallway with just a little extra willpower.

"Step through that wall," I told them calmly, "and you'll be crushed by pressure. Here," I continued, grabbing a chair. "Catch." I heaved the chair toward the water wall, and as the chair passed through, it was liquefied. The mortals all backed away.

"Don't tire yourself out," Annabeth cautioned me.

"This is nothing," I told her confidently. "Do you think they're all clear-sighted mortals?" I mused, seeing them whispering among themselves. There was one red haired woman, Joe West, the cop I had spoken to earlier, and one other man who's face I couldn't see.

"Percy, could you shut off the plumbing and clear out the water?" Annabeth asked. "Well, except for the wall, of course. We won't be able to hear anything if you don't. The black man has a police badge, so he probably has a gun. As for the other two, they're either demigods or monsters."

"Yeah, I know," I replied absently. "The cop's name is Joe West. He's the one I was talking to earlier today. I think he's a clear-sighted mortal, like my mom. He could see the _ventus_ for what is was at the station." I waved to him, and his face paled. "Nice to see you again, too."

By now, the rushing water had subsided, so the strangers could hear us talking. Annabeth put her knives away, back in the sheaths she hid in her sleeves, so she could use her hands.

"The girl could be an _empousa_ , I suppose. But the other guy's a demigod." Thalia stated.

"Or a mortal," I reminded her.

"Yeah, but they're looking right at our weapons and two clear-sighted mortals in one room is pretty rare. Three? Forget it. Besides, watch this." She bared her teeth and lunged forward brandishing Aegis. Eyes fixed on the shield, the adults backed away. "I'm pretty sure they're not mortals, but they aren't giving off any...you know...presence."

I saw the man with shoulder-length black hair turn to the others and say something like, "He's coming." Before I could process what that meant, I heard the crackling of electricity, and suddenly, that orange lightning filled the room.

It wrested Riptide from my hands, pushed me down and then seemed to whirl around Thalia for a while. Suddenly Thalia was on the ground. Then the lightning whirled away again grabbing Annabeth, but that didn't bother me that much. No matter how fast that thing was, it had its hands full with her. When the thing finally came to a halt, the got even more interesting.

In the center of the room stood a man in a red suit with a lightning bolt emblem. My sword was at his feet, but I was fine with that. It would be in my pocket again soon enough. The man also had his arm around Annabeth's throat. But, when I met her eyes, I saw she was fine.

I raced to Thalia's side, and, helping her up, murmured, "Annabeth can take care of herself. She still has those knives. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she muttered. "That thing tried to throw lightning at me. All it did was charge me up."

We turned to the man that held Annabeth.

"Let my friends go," it demanded through gritted teeth. "I promise I won't hurt her, or you, if you free my friends and surrender." I let the water drop to the floor.

I looked straight at Annabeth. "I'll get you out of this." There was a silent question in her eyes. Should I? I nodded. Go for it.

"Yes…." I said slowly looking at the _ravdono_. "But I can't promise not to hurt you." I held out my hand as if I was going to attack the man, and he dashed to the side at hundreds of miles per hour, carrying Annabeth with him. But, instead of attacking, I controlled the water on the floor, making a fist that pushed the _ravdono's_ friends back in the side room. The man seemed confused that I hadn't attacked him, but I wasn't who he needed to worry about.

Annabeth was reaching into her sleeves for the knives she kept there. Before the _ravdono_ knew what was happening, Annabeth had pulled out Katoptris and Mania Sofias, and then stabbed straight down into the man's thighs. Then, she pushed downward on the hilts of the knives, tearing long gashes in the _ravdono's_ legs.

It fell to the floor moaning in pain and clutching its legs. The people behind us cried out, but we couldn't make out the words.

"You think it's safe to let them out?" Thalia asked gesturing toward the trapped people.

"I don't know," I answered. "They could be dangerous."

"Please!" the woman called through the wall. "Stop! You're killing him!"


	6. Of Course it's Him

**Author's Note: Hello, goodbye. I'm done.**

Barry's POV

Barry had only just gotten back to his house when his phone buzzed. He turned the phone on to see a text from Cisco that read, "SOS." So he dashed away to STAR Labs.

When he got there, he almost tripped like five times on his way to the Cortex. There was water all over the floor. _I'm sure it's not a metahuman_ , he reassured himself. _Probably just a leak or something._ He spoke (thought, whatever) too soon.

A boy in a faded orange shirt had one hand raised out in front of him, controlling a wall of water locking Cisco, Caitlin, and Joe inside an offset of the Cortex. In the teen's other hand was a glowing bronze sword. One girl in silver with some kind of circlet in her hair was holding a large shield with a horrible bronze head on it. She also had a long spear with a head made of the same glowing bronze. The other girl was dressed strangely in jeans, an orange T-shirt, bronze wings, and an owl-shaped helmet.

 _What the heck?_ He thought. _Three metas all at once! I have to do something._

He grabbed the sword out of the boy's hand, pushed him to the floor, threw lightning at another, and grabbed the last one.

When he tried to get his friends freed, Waterboy seemed to try to attack him, so Barry raced off to one side. But, the water didn't attack him, it raised a wall between him and his friends again. Then, before he could process what was happening, he felt pain flare in his thighs.

When he looked down, he saw two knife hilts sticking out of his legs. The girl he was holding pulled them out and swept his feet out from under him. In the background, he could vaguely hear Joe yell his name. Barry tried to get back up, but his legs wouldn't take his weight.

 _There's nothing I can do_ , he realized. _They're going to finish off me and my friends and there's nothing I can do._

But the metas didn't _seem_ interested in killing him. Instead, they crowded around him asking each other questions.

The girl in silver stated, "He's bleeding, so he can't be a monster. I guess that's good news. But, it's not ichor either, so he isn't a god. Demigod maybe?"

"He must be," the boy insisted. "Otherwise the knives wouldn't have hurt him. But who's son? Hermes or Mercury maybe? But I've never seen this in a son of Hermes before."

"What the heck are you talking about?" Barry gasped.

The metas ignored him. "I don't know," said the girl with wings. "This would be an unprecedented show of power. Even at Camp Jupiter…." she trailed off watching Barry. "I've never seen anything like this."

Percy's POV

I extended my hand and bound the _ravdono_ with water.

"Percy, make it cold," Thalia commanded. "It'll inhibit his movement more."

"Wait, Percy, you can change water temperature?" Annabeth asked.

"Duh. Why do you think the Pacific Ocean is colder than the Atlantic Ocean?"

"I hadn't thought about it," she admitted. "But Thalia's idea is a good one." I pulled down the wall of water and used it to tie the "Flash" up. "Watch them, would you Thalia?" I gestured towards our prisoners.

I heard one of the strangers mutter something about a "Captain Cold," "Blackout," and "Vandal Savage." Also, "Weather Wizard." I assumed they were the mortals' names for some kind of monster. The "Captain Cold" was obviously meant to apply to me, and "Blackout" to Thalia. "Weather Wizard" could be either Thalia or I, and "Vandal Savage" could only be Annabeth, but what kind of a name was that?

"Captain Cold?" I teased. "That's a terrible name. I would be….Rogue Wave."

"Why not Tsunami?" the man asked.

"Because tsunamis are predictable. Duh." The man nodded like this made sense.

"Seriously?" the woman asked. "You're doing this now?"

"And I'd be Static," Thalia added.

"Quit talking, you guys," Annabeth reprimanded Thalia and I. "But, just so you know, I'd be Strigidae."

"Leave it to you to pick a nickname no one can pronounce," I snorted. "What does that even mean?"

"It's the scientific name for owls. Obviously."

"Please, stop! You're killing him!" the woman called again.

"Please!" Annabeth mimicked. "Stop saying that!" Turning back to us, she rolled her eyes. "Mortals."

The policeman approached us with his hands in the air. "Let us take care of our friend. You can obviously beat us no matter how fast B-, that is to say, the Flash, can run. What's the harm?"

I considered my options. We needed to know where the Flash had taken the _chrysi floga_ , but they might be more willing to answer questions if we let them take care of their friend. "Alright," I relented. "Thalia, let them through." She stepped back reluctantly.

I retracted the bonds of now freezing cold water as the Flash's friends rushed to his side.

"Barry, are you okay?" the woman asked him.

"What do you think?" he replied. The woman smiled sympathetically.

"Barry…" I muttered thoughtfully. "You guys remember how there was a Barry Allen at the police station who knew who the Flash was?"

Barry's friends carried him over to a hospital bed that stood waiting. The woman started to treat the wounds in his legs. We walked over there as well and pulled up chairs, but we kept our weapons out.

"So, _Barry Allen_ ," I said pointedly. "How're the legs?"

Barry sat up straighter. "How do you know my name?"

I smirked. "For someone who's trying to keep their identity secret, you're not very good at it." I glanced at Annabeth. "The other two are the ones you saw earlier?"

"Yup."

"You're friends have big mouths," I told Barry snidely.

"Guys," he said accusingly. "What did you say?"

"Nothing!" the man with long hair protested. "We've been here all day, and haven't seen anyone but each other and Joe."

"That doesn't matter to us," Thalia told them.

Annabeth put on her cap and vanished. "Boo," we heard from behind Joe West.

"So, you're metahumans?" Joe questioned us.

"Us?" Annabeth laughed. "Sure. Why not? Whatever you want to believe. If you want, we could be cute little bunnies hopping through the woods that will _bite your heads off_ , like the white rabbits in Monty Python's _The Holy Grail_."

The man with long hair sighed. "Why is it that all the hot girls that like movies turn out to be evil or reincarnated birds?"

Annabeth recoiled. "Shut up, you _tolmiri ilithios_. My boyfriend will chop your head off if you say anything else."

I took her hand and smiled wickedly. "She speaks the truth, you know." I raised my sword a little higher threateningly and the man stepped back with a gulp.

"Just forget I said anything."

"What are your names?" Thalia interjected. "Except for theirs, of course," she finished gesturing to Joe and Barry. "We already know theirs."

"Cisco," _vlakas_ introduced himself.

"And Caitlin," the redhead finished.

Annabeth continued, "Second, we want to know where the chrysi floga is."

"And that is…" Cisco began

Thalia looked about as confused as I felt. "You mean...none of you speak Greek? None of you?"

"Why would we?" Barry asked incredulously.

"Interesting," Annabeth muttered. "But if my knives worked on him, what could he be? Are you a metahuman?" she asked out loud.

"Well, duh!" Cisco replied. I winced, remembering our camp director, Dionysus, who was fond of saying the exact same thing. "It's not like there are non-metahumans out there that can run faster than the speed of sound."

I nodded, but thought of the air travel gods and titans could do. I was pretty sure that was way faster than the speed of sound. And, you know...light.

"So...you knew both your parents." Call me slow on the uptake, but I was still confused by the whole metahuman thing. Now we find out that our weapons can hurt them? Too weird.

"Yeah," Barry answered. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Joe interjected before I could come up with an answer. "Can you just tell us what the Chrysler flogger, or whatever you said, is?"

"Okay…" Annabeth began. "The chrysi floga is the golden flame," Annabeth answered slowly, as if talking to a small child. "You must have seen it. He," she pointed an accusing finger at Barry, "Rescued it earlier today."

"Oh, you mean that weird Firestorm-like thing?" Cisco clarified.

"I didn't rescue it!" Barry protested. "I brought it to the Pipeline!"

"What's Firestorm?" Thalia asked, once more confused. Although, I'm glad she asked, because normally I'm asking the questions. And making myself into an idiot in the process.

"When the particle accelerator exploded, a two men named Martin Stein and Ronald Raymond," Caitlin flinched when Barry said that name, "Were both consumed by the explosion. We thought they were both dead. But what actually happened was that the two men combined, the youngest body, and the most experienced mind. Apparently, the same thing happened to our friend in the Pipeline."

I prompted, "And the Pipeline is…."

"Oh, our metahuman prison. We were going to take him to Iron Heights eventually, but we haven't found a way to safely transport him yet. This guy is more powerful than Firestorm. He also has this weird sword, almost like yours," he pointed at me. "But half of it's steel. What is that glowing metal, anyways?"

Thalia, Annabeth, and I all glaced at each other. There was only one other time we had ever heard about a sword like that. But it was impossible

"Let us see him," I demanded, brushing aside his question.

"Why should we?" Joe questioned suspiciously.

"Because we were sent here to kill it," I growled at him. Everyone but Thalia and Annabeth looked taken aback by that. I saw them open their mouths to ask more questions, but warned them, "Don't ask for any details. Ever. They would mostly likely get you killed. Besides, you wouldn't believe us if we did tell you. Anyways, why does a criminal have a cop on his side?"

"Barry's not a criminal! He's Central City's hero, so if you could refrain from harming him in the future, that'd be great," Caitlin told us testily. "If you must see the meta, Barry can take you down when I'm done with him."

"So, you want to kill this metahuman like you killed Adam," Joe accused.

Annabeth looked confused. I tried really hard not to rub it in her face. Annabeth never looks confused. "Who's Adam?"

"The cop he killed at the station!" Joe shouted accusingly.

Thalia laughed. "That was definitely not a cop. That was a ventus." Catching his confused look, she laughed again.

I felt bad, acting like some heartless criminal, especially now that we knew Barry wasn't the enemy, but I needed to finish the quest fast. Who knew how long we had?

"Hmm. Well, assuming what your friends say is true, sorry about the legs. But, after a while of having people grab you around the neck, if they don't have a weapon in their hands, it's tempting to hurt them." Annabeth glanced at me. "You remember that arai? And I didn't know if you were hostile or what. I suppose I could have judo thrown you, but that didn't seem like as good of a solution at the time."

"It's fine," Barry told her. "I heal quickly. I'm also getting used to hurting myself."

"Done," Caitlin stated finally.

"Great!" Thalia exclaimed jumping to her feet. "Let's go!" She gets more than a little impatient sometimes. Really, we all do, what with the ADHD and stuff.

Barry walked us down to the Pipeline, which I thought was pretty good for a man who couldn't use his legs only an hour ago. When we got there, we saw a couple different holding cells, but Barry seemed to know exactly which one contained the chrysi floga.

When he began to open the door separating the cell from the rest of the Pipeline, I started to see the outline of the man who was our monster. Black combat boots, followed by camouflage pants, and a white tank top.

He was a tall, slim figure with broad shoulders and a leather scabbard at his side. The grip on the hilt on the sword was also made of leather. A half-blood's weapon. But, he's not a monster, so one of his…. halves (man, that's weird) must have been a demigod, I thought with considerable interest. As the door rose higher and higher, my friends and I also saw that the man had blond hair.

"Who are you?" I called. The man turned his head partway, revealing a long, ugly scar. "No," I muttered. "No. It can't be."

The blond man turned all the way around. "Oh, but it is," said Luke Castellan.


	7. Answers, Sort Of

**Author's Note: Mwah ha ha! How did you like the cliff-hanger? I don't know what you thought, but I thought it was pretty cool. I don't know if any of you caught this, but earlier, Percy wondered if the Flash was a son of Mercury of Hermes. In the second episode of the first season (of the Flash), Simon Stagg says the man in the red mask is like "Mercury on Earth." He he. Read and review!**

"You," my friends and I said as one.

"What, you know this guy?" Barry asked us, surprised. "We looked through a bunch of databases and couldn't find anything on facial recognition."

"That's because," I growled, "he should be dead."

"Mmm," Barry nodded. "I've got like three of those, so I get it."

We stared at him. "Three?"

He nodded again.

"How are you still alive?" I growled. "I watched you die! We," I gestured to my friends, "watched you die. And who did you "bond" with?"

Luke sat down heavily. "When I died, there was this young girl who led my spirit away. But, she didn't take me to the Underworld. She took me to this weird place called-,"

"Hotel Valhalla," Annabeth finished. Luke looked surprised that she knew. Although really, he shouldn't have. It was Annabeth after all. "My cousin," she explained tersely.

"As she was leading me there, I realized I wasn't alone in my mind. Kronos was still there. We started wrestling for control of my body and mind, and at first, I was winning. About a year after I was brought to Valhalla, Kronos took over. He...I... came back to Midgard the night the particle accelerator exploded."

"So, you became like Firestorm," Barry summarized.

Luke glared at him, his eyes momentarily flickering gold. "Shut it." When he spoke, his voice changed to that of Kronos. He placed his hands to his head and closed his eyes. When Luke-Kronos...it opened its eyes again, they were blue once more. "Please," Luke growled. "Get him out of here. Kronos is fighting me more with him here."

"Uh, you should leave," Thalia cautioned Barry.

"Why? He can't get out of there."

"We need answers. We won't get them if you're here and Kronos keeps breaking out."

"Fine," Barry huffed. He turned and left.

I opened my mouth to say something, but Annabeth shushed me. "You were one of the people Kronos wanted to kill most. If you talk, it might bring him back to the surface."

Luke continued. "After a while, I could get Kronos back under control. But every day I could hear him demanding the death of-," he glanced up. "Are they still listening? Get them to turn off the microphone. You can give them answers later. But I can't talk with it on."

"Turn it off!" Annabeth yelled.

We heard a clicking from the camera behind us.

"Anyways, every day, Kronos demanded the death of the gods and their children. Eventually he took over, though, and that's why that son of Ares died. I do my best to keep him under control, but," his voice broke, "I can't always do that."

"Luke…" I said, stunned. "You deserve Elysium more than any hero I've met."

His face contorted into a sneer, eyes turning solid gold. "JACKSON!" he screamed, flames streaming off him. "I will end you! You should have died in Tartarus. I watched you there. I know you felt my presence. Perhaps for your death sentence, I will throw you and this miserable girl," he pointed at Annabeth, "back in there!"

It sank to its knees howling, "I will destroy all demigods, and then Western Civilization! Everything you know will burn!" It's eyes flickered from gold to blue and back again. Finally, Luke came back. Not Kronos, thank the gods.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I couldn't stop him. Is what he said about Tartarus true?"

Annabeth and I nodded. I hoped it didn't show, but Kronos's threat about throwing Annabeth and I back into Tartarus terrified me. Even though it had been a while, I could still see Tartarus's face clear as day. Watching him dissolve hundreds of monsters, just by looking at them...it had been terrifying.

"Luke...I don't know how to tell you this, but we got a quest to come here and…" Thalia trailed off.

"Kill me," Luke finished morosely.

"Yes."

"Maybe we can figure something out," Annabeth ventured. "Maybe we don't have to kill you. I mean, Luke, I can't...can't watch you die again."

Luke just watched her sadly. "You should go up there. They're going to get suspicious. Well, even more suspicious. You didn't tell them anything, right?"

"Of course not," I declared. "We're not stupid."

Luke's eyes flickered again. "You should go."

We left. And to be honest, it was really hard not to cry. For me.

Annabeth pretty much broke down as soon as we left. "At least before," she gasped between sobs, "he died a hero's death. Now...we just have to kill him in cold blood."

Thalia just looked straight ahead, jaw clenched tightly. Even though she tried to hide it, I saw tears welling up in her eyes.

As for me...I wasn't sure how to feel. I mean, my worst enemy had come back from the dead, but in a hero's body. What do you even say to something like that? I'm gonna go with: _AHHHHHHHHH!_

By the time we were back up in that room we were in before (the Cerebrum? No, Cortex), Annabeth and Thalia were done with the waterworks.

"So, what's the story?" Cisco asked as we entered. "You guys obviously have a history with this dude. Tell us more."

I exchanged glances with my companions. How much could we tell them? How much should we tell them? I started talking, choosing my words carefully.

"Well, the guy who's like, the body of Firestorm, his name is Luke Castellan. He used to be a friend of ours. The dude he's merged with is a really bad person."

"I heard the name Kronos a couple times. Is that his name? It's almost like the Greek gods and stuff," Barry commented.

"No!" Annabeth blurted. "No, his name isn't Kronos. It's...Saturn, like the planet. His father was real into astronomy and being...the sky. But, when we met, we noticed that Saturn was the Roman name for Kronos, so we gave him that nickname. Greek mythology is kind of a thing at our...summer camp."

"If he's such a bad person, then...Luke? Luke's probably sick of merging with Kronos. So, we'll get them a quantum splicer, and you guys can work whatever the heck it is you're doing out, face to face."

"Um, what's a quantum splicer?" I asked.

"It's like this futuristic device that allows people who have merged to separate," Joe explained.

"NO!" my friends and I exclaimed as one.

"You do that, and everyone in this building is dead," I stated, somewhat dramatically.

"How so?" Joe asked incredulously.

"I don't see anything for it, Annabeth," I sighed. "We have to tell them the truth."

"Finally!" Caitlin exclaimed. "So, where were you metas the night you got your powers?"

"Mmm, yeah, that's the thing. We're not metahumans," Thalia stated. "And honestly, you guys are pretty dense. I mean, we come in here, ask you if you're demigods, act confused as to why you can't speak Greek, talk about Kronos, and you still don't know what we are."

"You're not metahumans," Barry said disbelievingly. "Yeah, sure. You were just born with powers, huh?"

"Actually, yes," Annabeth confirmed.

"Um...would you care to explain more?" Cisco questioned.

That's when I started telling the story. "I'm Percy, son of Poseidon, Annabeth's mother is Athena, and Thalia's father is Zeus." I pointed to each of my friends in turn.

"Wow. Your grandparents must have hated their children. Those are terrible names," Cisco remarked.

"Well, yes, our grandparents did hate our parents, but they didn't give them bad names to be mean. Our parents are Greek gods," Annabeth corrected him. "And I would refrain from calling their names horrible. Especially Zeus." She glanced at Thalia. "Sorry."

Joe, Barry, Caitlin, and Cisco all stared at us. "Yeah right," Joe scoffed after a log pause.

"It's true," Thalia assured them. "Zeus is Lord of the Sky. Lightning. Electricity. That's me all the way."

"So that's why the lighting didn't bother you," Barry said, as if he was just now coming to this conclusion.

Cisco turned to me. "And the water powers? Those are from your dad?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes."

Caitlin still seemed confused, which I guess was to be expected. Her world had just expanded, probably for the second time. I could relate. "But, the wings. How did you do that?" she queried Annabeth.

"Oh, a friend made those for me. He's...mechanically talented."

"Can I see the wings?" Cisco asked excitedly. Annabeth reactivated the wings and Cisco ran his hand over them reverently. "Oh, man, this guy's a genius! How on earth did he get those wings into that little amulet?"

"Don't ever let him hear you calling him a genius," Thalia warned. "His ego is big enough already."

"As for the wings," I continued, "only the Hephaestus kids know how to make them."

"Sorry to interrupt," Joe interrupted (rude!). "But, can we get back to the whole you'll-all-be-dead-if-you-do thing?"

Annabeth resumed the tale for me. "When Percy and I were twelve-,"

Barry cut her off. "When you and Percy were twelve? Thalia's about your age, right? She certainly looks it. Why wasn't she twelve too?"

"I was a tree," Thalia stated abruptly with a sigh. While our new...acquaintances were still staring at her, she continued. "Then, when I finally became human again I was almost sixteen. Percy and Annabeth were fourteen. Then, I pledged myself to the immortal goddess of the hunt, became her lieutenant, and, as a bonus, became immortal myself."

"Wait, so, how long have you looked sixteen?" Barry asked.

"Oh, a few years."

"And I thought our lives were messed up," Cisco commented.

"Anyways," Annabeth began harshly, "when Percy and I were twelve, we went on our first quest. It led us to the Underworld, which sucked, although now we do have an immortal three-headed dog that wants to play with us. When we got back to camp, it turned out that Luke was a traitor. He tried to kill Percy with scorpion, and he almost succeeded. Luke...he felt betrayed by his father, Hermes. Luke started working for Kronos, the titan lord of time. In four years, he gave his body up to Kronos, and we fought a war against him."

I raised my hand. "Yeah, fighting Titans is not fun. I did it like four times with Kronos, once with the Lord of the East, who was also evil, and once with Atlas. I think the worst thing was Kronos slowing time. Then there was like the knock-you-down-with-a-wave-of-force thing. That got annoying fast."

Annabeth picked up the story again. "In the end, we won the war, but Luke sacrificed himself to save Olympus."

Joe asked, "But, if he died, how is he alive?"

"The Firestorm-thing said something about Valhalla," Barry observed. "That's...what, the Norse heaven? Are you saying Norse gods are real too?"

"Did we say that?" I asked nervously. "I don't think we said anything like that at all." I turned to Annabeth and muttered out of the corner of my mouth, "They're onto us." Annabeth just glared at me.

Joe, Caitlin, Cisco, and Barry were all conferring with each other when we turned our attention back to them. "How many cultures' gods still exist?" Joe queried.

"Well, there's the Greek, the Romans, the Norse, and the Egyptians… But you didn't need to know any of that..." I trailed off, counting the civilizations on my fingers.

"Seriously, stop interrupting me," Annabeth reprimanded. "Where were we? Oh, Luke was in Valhalla. But Luke still had a piece of Kronos's consciousness inside him.

In Valhalla, every once in awhile, heroes get quests in other worlds. Midgard is the mortal world. Kronos fought Luke for control of his mind in Valhalla, and eventually won. He brought Luke back to this world the night that particle accelerator exploded. The dark matter from the explosion made him merge with Kronos. That's why he killed the one person and then tried to disappear."

"And as for the you'll all be dead comment, that was the truth," I finished for Annabeth. "Kronos's true form is kind of like the true form of the gods. When the gods are in their true form, if you look at them, they incinerate you. With Kronos, just being in front of him will disintegrate your body."

"Ah," Caitlin squeaked. "So, no quantum splicer, then."

Barry laughed. "Why is it that all good guys seem to have whacky lives?"

I grinned. "You don't know the half of it."

"So tell us more," Joe urged. He still didn't trust us. I could see it in his eyes.

"I-," I was cut off by alarms blaring. "What's that?"


	8. The Escape

**Author's Note: Oh no! What's going to happen? Can you guess? Maybe. I don't know. Just out of curiosity, is there anything I can do to make this better? I'm trying to go back and edit it right now, so if there's anything you want to see, let me know!**

 **One more thing...I'm trying to do decide what to do next. Trust me, I have tons of ideas, but I was thinking either the sequel to** _ **Truth Be Told**_ **or a new one:** _ **Double Vision**_ **. Tell me which one you'd like to see first. There'll be more info on** _ **Double Vision**_ **later. Anyways, read and review!**

Cisco raced (it was normal raced though, he probably only went four miles per hour) over to one of his many monitors. Seriously, the guy was obsessed with technology. Technology...oh, shoot. We were gonna have a bunch of uglies coming in here real soon.

Anyways, when Cisco reached his computer, he seemed confused. "No. No, this is impossible."

"What?" Thalia demanded impatiently (again).

"It says a metahuman escaped from the Pipeline," Barry announced disbelievingly. "But Cisco's right, it's impossible. Those cells are designed to withstand metahumans."

"Which one?" I asked, a sense of foreboding deep within me.

"Um, your friend. The crispy flicker, or whatever," Caitlin informed us. While she was talking, Barry put on his suit and ran out the door after Luke.

"You're idiots," Annabeth told them. "Luke is not just a metahuman! First off, he has the skills of a master thief because of his father. But, he also has access, who knows how much, to the powers of the Lord of Time. And as if that's not enough, you left him his sword!"

"No sword could cut through that!" Cisco protested. "I built it myself!"

"You have too much faith in your inventions," I snarled. The pipes started to rumble.

Of course, Barry would choose that moment to come back.

He had scorch marks in several places on his suit, the worst on the emblem, but when Caitlin asked, he said he was okay.

"Barry, you ruined the suit. This is not okay. And the emblem is all messed up. You know how hard it is to fix those things? Last time, I was up all night just building the inside!" That was Cisco, who apparently was very protective of his gear.

Thalia sneered at Cisco distastefully. "This guy's starting to sound more and more like Leo. You see why I joined the Hunters, Annabeth?"

Annabeth smiled at me and took my hand. "I suppose you had your reasons, Thalia. But you're missing out, in some ways."

"In some ways?" I protested. Annabeth just gave me one of her death looks, like Don't push your luck. Or else. So I decided to ask Barry some questions, before my girlfriend killed me.

"Did you find him?"

"At one point, yes. I tried to grab him and bring him back in, but he was expecting me this time. It was the weirdest thing: as soon as I started to approach him, time slowed way down. Like, I was barely moving at all."

"That would be Kronos controlling him, then," Annabeth sighed.

"How do we find him?" Caitlin asked. "Cisco, maybe you could vibe for us?"

Thalia looked confused. Again. Really, I'm pretty sure we were all confused. "Vibe? What's that?"

"It's my power," Cisco answered wearily. "I can sometimes sense where metahumans are, and what they're doing. I also have the occasional glimpse of the future."

"Ah," she replied. "We have an Oracle who can give us prophecies about the future, but those are really annoying. And there have been like, three that predicted the end of the world."

"Yeah," Annabeth chimed in. "There was the first Great Prophecy, the second Great Prophecy, and the one we're following now."

"I think they should be called the Sucky Prophecies, personally," I told them. "I mean, there was nothing great about it."

"Cisco, vibe," Joe commanded.

"Fine."

Cisco put on some ridiculous looking glasses and took a deep breath. He stood there for a couple minutes doing nothing while we all watched him. Finally, he took the glasses off. "I got nothing."

I thought about what else we could do. Barry had superspeed and I had… "Blackjack!" I exclaimed suddenly. "I could call Blackjack. It might take a few minutes, but that way we can have air support."

"Good idea Percy," Annabeth praised. Coming from the daughter of the wisdom goddess, that's a pretty high praise.

I closed my eyes and thought of my winged friend, calling him to me. _Doughnuts,_ I thought. _You know you want them_ _._

Not thirty seconds later, I heard hooves clopping in the hallway as my pegasus friend came out of the concrete passage.

"What the-," Cisco, who was still sitting by one of his computers, scrambled backward.

"This is my friend Blackjack," I told our new friends. "Blackjack, be nice. And before you can ask, no one needs to be stampeded."

 _If you say so boss,_ Blackjack spoke in my mind.

"You can talk to horses?" Cailin asked.

"Yeah, It's a Poseidon thing."

"He still calling you "boss," Percy?" Thalia teased.

"I've tried to get him to stop," I answered.

 _Why do ya need me, boss?_

"We're trying to track down Luke," I told Blackjack.

 _I thought he was dead!_

"So did I. So did I."

"Percy, are you done talking to the horse?" Joe asked impatiently.

 _I ain't no horse!_ Blackjack reared, spreading his wings wide.

"Sorry, pegasus," he amended.

 _Hey, boss._

"What now, Blackjack?"

 _Tell the guy who's almost as fast as me that his doughnuts were delicious. Especially the Bavarian chocolate cream. I mean, man, that place knows it's chocolate!_

"Hey, Barry?" He looked up. "I don't understand this, but my pegasus says that he's faster than you. That's not the part I don't understand. He said to tell you that...your doughnuts were delicious?"

"That was you!" he shouted at Blackjack.

"What?" Joe's face was priceless. "Why are you mad at the pegasus?"

"He stole my doughnuts a couple days ago!"

"Your pegasus...likes doughnuts," Cisco observed.

"It's his favorite food," Annabeth replied. "One that he does not need to have as often as he wants it."

"Just go already," Thalia insisted. "You can talk with the horse," she put extra emphasis on the word, "later."

"Alright, alright," I swung myself up onto Blackjack's back. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash (heh, heh) of orange lightning as Barry suited up.

"Be careful," Annabeth and Caitlin said at the same time.


	9. That's Terrifying

**Author's Note: Aaaand they're off! To find their dead enemy who has gotten way more powers than he needs. Ah, I feel for these guys. I really do. Now if Barry would just stop messing with the timeline, we might be able to get a coherent story out of this. Read and review!**

Thalia's POV

I walked over to Cisco, Caitlin, and Joe, who were monitoring Barry's progress from behind their enormous screens. These people were so obsessed with their technology, I was surprised nothing had tracked us down yet.

Annabeth glanced at me. "I'm gonna go walk around, make sure I know where all the exits are. Just in case."

I watched her leave, and as soon as I was sure she couldn't hear us, I turned to our...friends (what else can you call them when they're helping you track down an old enemy?).

"Listen up," I demanded, speaking through into the little microphone for Barry's benefit. "Barry, you too. You all seem like curious people. Am I right? You always want to know more." All three of them nodded. I assumed Barry did too. "Well, that's fine. But there's one thing you can't ever ask about. Tartarus."

Joe watched me with mistrust in his eyes. "Why not?"

"You don't want to agitate my friends. Percy especially. He's...powerful. Be thankful he's on your side, and not fighting against you."

Annabeth walked back in at that point. "Okay, so plenty of room to fight monsters, not much in the way of escapes. And, you should probably call Percy and Barry back. If they haven't found Luke by now, they won't until he makes himself known. What were you guys talking about?"

I smiled breezily. "Nothing important."

Barry's POV

After nothing more than a few seconds, Cisco spoke in my ear, "Barry, come back. You can find him again later. We haven't been able to get any readings, and there's no point in running for no reason."

Above me, Percy's doughnut stealing pegasus banked hard to the right, and Percy and I zoomed back to STAR Labs.

Cisco, who was sitting in front of one of his ever-present computers, still looked jittery. He started to type something in, but Percy stopped him.

"Hey, man. You gotta stop using computers around us."

Cisco sighed. "I'm getting really tired of hearing/asking this, but why?"

"Monsters can track us down if we use technology, or if someone around us uses it." Annabeth answered.

"That's another thing I don't understand," Joe commented. "Why do you need to fight "monsters"? Didn't they all die in ancient times? Assuming your story is true, of course."

Thalia replied for Annabeth and Percy. "Monsters don't actually die in the same way mortals die. When we destroy their forms here, they disintegrate, yes. But their essence is sent to Tartarus, where they reform." Her voice held badly disguised venom that I understood pretty well. It clearly said, _Drop it, now. Or else._

Cisco, Caitlin, and I seemed to catch on to Thalia's poisonous attitude and started doing other things, but not Joe. He seemed...determined, to put it mildly. "Ah, Tartarus. See, I did some reading on that while you guys were gone, and the myths about it are controversial. Some say it's a bottomless pit, while some say it's an actual place. Every myth agrees that no mortal has ever been there. Which is it? And how do you know if you've never been? It seems to me that there are a lot of holes in your story, and I can't help but wonder if you're not who you say you are."

I shook my head no violently. We did not need to make these people angry, like Thalia said.

Percy glared at Joe, but Annabeth spoke before he could say anything. "Look, Joe. I know you don't know us, but I promise we won't do anything to hurt this team. Can we please just focus on finding Luke?"

"I wish I could," Joe said in a steely voice. "Unfortunately, I question your loyalty."

"You think you know what I've been through?" Percy growled at Joe. "True, you don't know everything about us, but I can promise you we are who we say we are. What right do you have to question us?"

"Look, kid," Joe snarled back. "This team has been betrayed by multiple people we thought we could trust. I don't trust someone until I know that they can remain trustworthy under pressure.

"Some of the things I've seen, you wouldn't believe. And you would crumble like a sand castle if you had to make sacrifices to save a life. You strike me as a coward."

"You dare call me a coward? You're just a police officer. Tell me, O great one," Percy continued sarcastically, "what things do you think I would find terrifying?"

I looked down and saw fissure lines spreading outward from Percy's feet. I tried to run in and knock him down or something, but I couldn't get my feet under me.

"Percy, could you um, calm down? The floor is starting to shake," Thalia told him nervously. He ignored her.

"Any of the murders, all the metahumans we've seen would make you hide like a child," Joe replied angrily. "You have never known true sacrifice!"

The earthquake got more and more violent.

Annabeth looked at Percy pleadingly. "Please, Percy. Don't do this to me again."

When he looked into her eyes, Percy began to calm down. "I'm sorry," he told her. The floor stopped shaking.

I averted my eyes, and tried to look at something else. Which happened to be the rest of my team. They were all hugging the wall, or the floor, or hiding under the table.

"Never assume," Percy said bitterly, "that you have suffered more than my friends and I. None of you have seen war. None of you have watched friends die right in front of you, and been powerless to stop it. My fatal flaw is _l_ _oyalty_. A goddess once told me that to save a friend, I would sacrifice the world. And then I have to watch those people get thrown into the Underworld because I couldn't save them. Do you have any idea what that does to you? None of you have been trapped so far down below the earth...where no one expects you to come back from. You asked how we know so much about Tartarus. Annabeth and I fell in. We should have died, countless times. The odds of us surviving… _katára Tártara._ " he trailed off into a long statement in Ancient Greek. " _An Tártara ítan edó, tha íthela na ton skotóso, an aftó ítan dynató_."

"What was it like?" Caitlin asked softly.

Percy took a deep breath and answered. "Like being in huge cave with all the enemies you've ever faced, ever defeated. And they're all hunting you. And when you kill them, they just keep coming back. Now, imagine there's only one exit. Then, you find out that the cave isn't a cave at all, but a body. A body for something huge and evil. That's not even close to the fear that place instills in you, the anger…" Percy trailed off sadly. His eyes were stormy, almost fractured, like he was remembering something horrible.

"So, you can just cause earthquakes whenever you want?" Joe asked, trying to break the tension in the air. He sounded pretty nervous.

"Um, sort of. I haven't actually done it since Mt. St. Helens…" Percy replied.

"What do you mean since Mt. St. Helens?" Cisco asked him.

"Well, a couple years ago, I was on this quest in the Labyrinth, which, by the way, is under all of America, and Hephaestus had Annabeth and I take this little detour to Mt. St. Helens. The volcano was one of his favorite forges, but they chained Typhon under there, so he couldn't use it, until recently. But Hephaestus wanted us to find out what was happening there. When we got there, there were these sea demons remaking Kronos's scythe from that stupid sword Luke has. They discovered me, and kind of...threw lava at me. But, since I pretty much literally have the sea in my blood, it was hard for them to burn me. Nevertheless, it freaked me out. I don't really remember much except, like, I wigged out, and then I was thrown in the sky. So, yeah. I may have caused the first explosion of the volcano. And woken Typhon. Who caused the second explosion."

"You guys are weird," Cisco commented dryly.

"Well, like he said earlier," Annabeth said, "you don't know the half of it."


	10. Running, Running, Running, and Swords

**Author's Note: Hello, dear readers. I hope you like the updates! Ah, I love cliffhangers. Don't you? Speaking of, there's one at the end of this chapter. By the way, this one's kind of short, but I think you'll like it. I got some questions about how Barry and Percy were going to combine their powers, so that's in here too.**

Percy's POV

"Whatever," I growled. "Annabeth, Thalia, wanna train?"

"Sure," Thalia answered, sounding relieved.

"Mind if I come?" Barry asked. "I want to see what your training's like. Mine is pretty much just running from city to city as fast as I can."

"I guess," Annabeth replied nonchalantly.

Barry led us to an abandoned field outside the city where there was plenty of room for us to train in our own...special way.

"So, what do you want to do?" Barry asked awkwardly. He was all suited up and ready to run. I thought he looked stupid.

Behind my back, I uncapped my pen, and Riptide sprang into my hands. I might like Barry more than some of his associates, but I didn't trust him enough to show him Riptide's secret.

"Fight," I replied simply.

"You...fight...to train?" Barry answered slowly.

"Uh, yeah," Thalia said. "We'll spend our entire lives fighting things, so we need to be good at it."

"You sound like Oliver," Barry muttered rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Who?"

"Never mind."

"Let's go, Percy," Annabeth challenged me with a gleam in her eyes. "You are so going to lose."

"Not likely," I growled back. But really, it was very likely. That's what happened every other time we fought. I raised my sword as Annabeth ran at me, knives unsheathed.

I blocked her first strike on the hilt of my blade and quickly slipped my sword down, stopping a stab that would've caught me in the legs (if Annabeth were trying to hurt me which, hopefully, she wasn't). I lunged forward, blade out in front. The point hit the center of Katoptris and knocked it out of Annabeth's hands.

She flashed a smile of satisfaction, which I barely had time to process before Annabeth lunged at me again. Her strike was going straight for my chest, but I moved Riptide by an fraction of an inch, and the blade sparked off.

I knocked the dagger out of Annabeth's grasp with one hand, and stood still, blade pointed at her chest.

"You lose," I said calmly. "For once."

Her glittering gray eyes had taken on the Celestial bronze of my sword. "Well, well. It appears I'm not quite as good as I thought I was."

Barry stood about ten feet away, mouth hanging open. "You just...fought. Like, really fast. I mean, not me fast, but still."

"Whatever, Streak. What can you do? Besides the running thing." Thalia challenged,

"Well…" Barry trailed off as he started to run, swirling around and around me in a blur of red and gold.

 _Lightning_ , Thalia mouthed. I nodded quickly and thrust my sword out in between a miniscule gap. Barry skidded to a halt, feet out in front, leaning back as if he were trying to do the limbo.

"Nope," I smiled. "I don't like lightning very much. She's gotten me enough times," I continued pointing at Thalia. And her brother, I added in my mind.

"Anything else?" Annabeth asked.

Barry showed us a range of his different talents, which didn't have much of a range. They were all speed-related, which I thought was a little boring. But then, I'm not really one to talk. After all, my powers are all water related. _Oh, but Percy,_ you say, _you're powers are awesome!_ Well, thanks. I think so too. But still...what Barry could do was like the ultimate way for demigods to survive. I especially liked the phasing thing. Barry could run right up to an object, vibrate, and go straight through it. I remembered an idea Annabeth had had when she met Sadie Kane, about demigods learning to travel through the Duat. That would enable us to go through things, exactly like Barry was doing. Wait, does that mean he's running in the Duat? Woah. Deep thoughts, man.

"I wonder…" Annabeth mused. "Barry, you're running around and creating lots of wind. And Percy, you can create hurricanes. What if Barry ran around you and made summoning hurricanes earlier?"

"We could try it," I answered. "Thalia, Annabeth, step back. Barry, do your thing."

Barry exhaled loudly through his nose, as if he were irritated, but did as I asked. As he whirled around me in a swirl of color, I closed my eyes tightly and concentrated. The winds responded to me almost immediately, and with only the tiniest amount of effort.

I didn't even realize Barry wasn't helping until I saw him standing with the girls. Normally, I would've had to stop soon because I was tired, but not this time. I felt like I could've gone on forever.

But, I realized I needed to stop, so that I could kiss my girlfriend without tossing her up in the air.

"Um, that worked," I stated.

"No duh, Seaweed Brain," Thalia swatted my arm. "That was the biggest hurricane I've ever seen you make."

"What?" Barry asked out of nowhere. "Cisco, slow down. I can't understand you. What's happening?" He looked up, eyes glinting worriedly. "They got a signal from our metahuman alert app."

"Your what?"

"It doesn't matter. Your friend has returned. Meet you back in the city." And then he raced off without another word.

"Get back here, you moron!" Thalia shouted after him as Annabeth turned to me.

"He's going to get himself killed," she told me gravely.

I nodded. "We have to go after him. But how are we going to get there fast enough?"

"How about one of your shadow-traveling cousins?" Annabeth suggested sarcastically.

"Oh, yeah. Which one should I ask? Nico?"

"No, Hazel. You know Nico's shadow travel is still wobbly."

"Okay." After replying, I reached out with my mind. I had recently discovered that I could telepathically communicate with other children of the Big Three, which came in handy when I was about to be overrun by monsters. Of course that's never happened to me. Or any other demigod. Ever.

 _Hazel_ , I thought. _We need you here._

 _On my way_ , she replied. Then, out of nowhere she was standing next to us, sword drawn. "What do you need?"

"We need to shadow-travel. Quickly," I said.

"One problem. I don't know this area, so unless there's any metal I can latch onto…" Hazel trailed off.

"Well, how'd you get here?" Thalia asked.

"Percy's sword. Wait, could I do that for where you're going?"

"Actually, yes," Annabeth answered. "Lu-the thing we're trying to track down has a special sword. It's half bronze, half steel. It might feel like the metals are fighting each other."

"Yes, I can sense it," Hazel replied. "Grab my hand."

We joined hands in a loose circle before everything went black.

Shadow-traveling is really cold, and loud, and a little scary. When I was with my dog, Mrs. O'Leary, it wasn't as bad. But with just one person guiding you...it's a little bit terrifying. I love it.

When we could see color again (which seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few seconds) we had dropped right smack dab into the middle of a battle.

Barry was doing his best to stop Kronos, which wasn't saying much when battling Kronos. Mainly, he was just dodging blasts of flames. Great. As if Kronos needed anymore powers.

Hazel made a little squeaking sound in the back of her throat. "What is that?"

"Kronos," Thalia replied grimly.

"The...the same one the Greeks fought in Manhattan a while back?"

"Yes."

"Hazel, get to the demigod he's trying to kill," I commanded her gently. "We'll handle this."

As she raced over to one of the battered cars, Annabeth sighed. "Here we are again. Can't we ever catch a break?"

"We don't have time for this," I reminded her. "Let's get to Barry and talk strategy."

Despite our desperate situation, her eyes shone. She loved strategy. The three of us were about to rendezvous with Barry when suddenly he turned and ran away.

" _Di Immortales_ , Bar-I mean, Flash!" I shouted. "Way to save your city. And the world. I guess we're on our own," I told the girls.


	11. Velocity Gained, Velocity Lost

**Author's Note: Don't worry, I didn't make Barry out to be a coward, I promise. If any of you are super familiar with the Flash, you can probably guess what he's doing. But, I'm just distracting you now. Read and review!**

I spoke too soon, however. As we watched, orange lightning streaked (pardon the pun) down the road, heading straight for Kronos.

"Oh, I see," Annabeth said knowingly. "He ran away to gain velocity. If he hits Kronos, it should deal a huge blow to him. There's just one thing…"

"What's that?" I asked (the unknowing idiot, as usual).

"Well, if Kronos can slow time…" Annabeth trailed off.

Thalia's face paled. "He could potentially stop Barry while he's running." She waved her hands trying to get Barry's attention. "Ba-Flash, STOP!"

But it was too late. As Barry neared him, Kronos held out his hands and concentrated. As we watched, Barry began to slow. Everything around him continued at a normal speed, but eventually we could see him clearly.

Barry had jumped forward into the air, one fist extended. His mouth was opened in a shout that would have sounded fierce. But, the slowed time made his voice extra low and slow, like when you reduced the speed if a video. Lightning still flickered around him, but Barry was now moving no faster than a tortoise.

Barry's advance was painfully slow, and as my friends and I stood transfixed, I whispered, "I would laugh right now, but he's in serious danger."

Kronos hadn't seen us yet, as he was concentrating hard on his victim. "You are nothing compared to me, Flash," Kronos snarled. "No one will save you now. Your life will be tribute to me."

"Kronos!" I yelled. "Let him go! It's us you want."

"Jackson," he growled.

As Kronos began walking toward us, my friends and I drew our weapons. I heard metal scraping on metal as Annabeth's wings unfolded. On his way, Kronos approached Barry and pushed down on his head and shoulders, until Barry was almost vertical to the ground.

As Kronos turned away from Barry, time unfroze around our speedy friend, and Barry plowed straight into the asphalt. My friends and I winced in sympathy.

"Do you have a death wish, boy?" Kronos continued as if nothing had happened.

I met his golden gaze (not without fear) and tried to look like I wasn't trying to see if Barry was okay. Luckily, before I had to start making it obvious, I saw Barry trying to get up. He shook his head like he was groggy, but seemed okay otherwise. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Maybe I do, Kronos," I retorted. "Or maybe I just like kicking your butt."

"I'm more inclined to think it's the second one," Thalia commented behind me. "I know I love sending this guy back to Tartarus."

In his anger, flames surrounded the lord of time, and my friends and I took a step back. Without another word, Kronos raised his hands and blasted us with fire. I was sure we were goners, but suddenly we were behind a large building hundreds of feet away.

I peered out from behind edge of the building and, without turning around, said, "Thanks, Barry."

"You're welcome," he slurred. He pressed his hands to the side of his head. "Ow. That Kronos guy really packs a punch! What exactly did he do?"

"He used your speed against you," Annabeth answered sadly. "He slowed time around you, pushed you into the ground, and then released the time spell. Luke always was inventive…"

Thalia and I exchanged glances grimly, searching each other for any ideas. Luke is still Annabeth's weakness, I tried to convey to her. We have to end this quickly.

Open to any ideas, Thalia's eyes seemed to say.

"Alright," I continued aloud. "Barry, help me make a hurricane. That'll help distract him."

"Okay," Barry replied. "Is there anything else I can do?"

"Hit me with your lightning," Thalia instructed. "Last time, it gave me extra energy."

I turned to Annabeth. "Let's see how well those wings work."

When my friends and I finally emerged from behind the building, I realized we had left Hazel to fend for herself. She stood, sword drawn, in front of Kronos, who was slowly advancing. Hazel was being very brave, but I could see her shaking. Evidently, so could Kronos. His lip curled and he looked past her as if she weren't there.

"Lavender Alogo," Kronos sneered. "Favorite of my idiot son, Chiron."

Lavender? As I peered further into the distance, I saw that Kronos was indeed after our friend Lavender again. But why? Because she was Chiron's favorite?

"Great-grandfather," she said (although it sounded like an accusation) with an exaggerated mock bow. "My, father, Aristois, warned me of the hatred you possessed for my family, but I didn't realize you were so eager to harm Chiron. You went to an awful amount of trouble tracking down your son's family."

Oh. Lavender is descended from Chiron. That kind of makes sense. But not really.

"Why else would Chiron have paid attention?" Kronos questioned her. "You are nothing to me but bait. For them," he finished whirling toward my friends and I.

"Now, Barry," I muttered. In the blink of an eye, I had a huge hurricane swirling around me, and Thalia had electricity crackling across her skin. Annabeth rose high into the air, knives at the ready.

As Kronos fired, I released the hurricane from around my body, and commanded it to chase him down. Even Kronos couldn't do anything about wind. Wait, could he?

But apparently not, as he was unable to escape the hurricane. Thalia blasted Kronos with lightning bolts, as many as she could possibly summon. Annabeth navigated the savage winds expertly, diving in to cut or stab at Kronos before letting the winds carry her back up. Barry ran endlessly, listing from side to side somewhat, but still stoking the storm and supplying Thalia with energy. Needless to say, we were feeling pretty good. This was going a lot better than our last fight with Kronos.

I drew my sword and advanced on Kronos who was all but curled into a little ball. The winds didn't bother me, for some reason.

"Let's end this, Kronos."


	12. The Force

**Author's Note: And it's on! Kronos and Percy are at it again, with a lot of help from Barry, of course. Read and review!**

As I charged him, Kronos stood with difficulty and drew his sword. I feinted at his head before going down to the legs, but Kronos blocked my strike. Even in his weakened state, he had thousands of years of experience, and Luke's skill with a sword.

We fought wildly for a matter of minutes, but it exhausted both Luke and I. I say Luke because while Kronos was in control, it was Luke who was swinging the sword. Eventually, Kronos realized, _Duh, I have fire powers._

He blasted me with flames, and from above Annabeth screamed in horror. But I regained my feet quickly. Although my clothes were singed, I was unharmed. I remembered the Telkhines under Mt. St. Helens, saying, _"Your father's nature protects you, makes you hard to burn."_ I guess that applied to fire as well as lava.

I crossed swords with Kronos once more, and just for a moment, Luke regained control. There was a silent message in his eyes. Kill me, they begged. Let it end.

Then Kronos roared, stamping his foot. Naturally, a wave of pure force blasted me back. Why is it that all Titans can do that? Kronos bellowed again, this time throwing his hands out to either side.

My friends and I were all thrown back by flame and sheer power as Kronos expelled his anger. The hurricane dissipated, and Barry, poor well-meaning Barry, got up and tried to create it again. Kronos blasted him with fire.

Things had gone from bad to worse. I was getting ready to make my most desperate move when a small kitten fell out of the sky and landed on Kronos's face.

You think I'm kidding? I'm not. The little calico kitten scratched at the Titan lord's face until Kronos threw it off him. The kitten landed about six feet away with an indignant, _Mrrow!_

Then it got weirder, of course. The kitten grew in size until it was a skeletal sabertooth tiger. As it charged Kronos, Annabeth and I exchanged disbelieving glances.

"Small Bob?" I asked softly. The cat turned to me and dipped its head in acknowledgement. "But that means…"

Annabeth and I looked up in the direction Small Bob had come from. On top of a large skyscraper, we could see a ten foot silver figure with wild hair and dressed in a janitor's uniform. "BOB!" we cried in unison.

"Friends!" Bob called as he leaped down the to ground.

I'd never been so happy to see a Titan, except when Bob rescued us in Tartarus. "Don't worry, I will keep him down!" Bob leaped into battle, spearhead jutting out of his broom. "SWEEP!" he bellowed.

Bob quickly engaged the Lord of Time. It made a huge difference having a Titan on our side, but it wasn't enough. Bob was badly outmatched, what with his not being previous King of the Universe, and Thalia, Annabeth, Barry, and I were all tiring out.

I glanced up at Annabeth. Despite the wings, which would have looked ridiculous on anyone else, she seemed beautiful and powerful. "I'm sorry," I murmured, although I doubted she could hear. "I promised I would never...but I have to."

As Kronos advanced, I closed my eyes, stretching my arms wide. I could feel the ocean with me wherever I went. I felt the water. It was everywhere, even inside people. I remembered the feeling of power I had at the edge of Chaos.

Looking within, I saw that the glass ball I had felt break in Tartarus was still there. A little smoother, but still sharp as a knife. I was the ocean.

My eyes flew open just as Kronos was about to bring his sword down on my head. I controlled the water inside him and choked him. "I'm sorry," I whispered again. I watched impassively as he stumbled back, gasping for air, but I couldn't stop now. I had to finish it.

Barry's POV

I stared at the charging metahuman, waiting for Percy to do something. Or waiting for Percy's giant, silver friend to stop Kronos. But Percy just stood there, and the ten-foot janitor was on the ground. As Cronuts, sorry Kronos, was about to kill Percy, Percy's shut eyes opened.

All of a sudden, time seemed to slow around Percy, but not like Kronos had done. This was more reassuring, like seeing palm trees wave in the wind or watching a wave break in slow motion. Percy's hand was extended toward Kronos, and Kronos seemed to be struggling to get air.

"Cisco, hack the security feeds. You've got to see this," I commanded slowly.

I heard clicking sounds as Cisco typed in commands. When they stopped, I heard Cisco and Caitlin inhale quickly.

"What is that?" Cisco demanded. I imagined him leaning as close to the screen as he could get. "The Jedi chokehold? The Force is strong with that one! And who's the janitor?"

"Cisco, this is serious," Caitlin scolded. "Can't you see how disturbing that is? I was never sure about how much we should trust these demigods, but this is on a completely different level than what I imagined. How on Earth are we supposed to trust them?"

"I think we should trust them more," I speculated. "I mean, they had these amazing powers we didn't know about. They could have killed us as soon as they saw us, but they didn't."

"What are you doing just standing around?" Cisco yelled. "Go help him!"

"Oh, yeah." I dashed over to where Percy was still surrounded by eerily slow wind. Kronos lay dead on the ground. "You can stop now, Percy," I told him casually.

But Percy didn't stop. If anything, he only started to use his powers more.

"Loyalty," he boomed in a voice like a hundred waves breaking at once. "They said loyalty would be my doom. But they were wrong." His gaze turned to me. "It will be yours."

Against my better judgement, I looked into his eyes. Immediately, it was like I was in the ocean. Waves were pounding me on all sides. The wind roared in my ears. Then, I blinked and I was back in Central City.

"What the…" I trailed off as Percy's wild gaze focused on me.

"You will suffer in the future. Better to die here."

And suddenly, I couldn't breathe.


	13. Farewell

**Author's Note: Yeah, so...a little bit of weirdness going on right here. Anything I can do to improve it? Read and review!**

Percy's POV

The power raged inside me, more than I had ever imagined. All rational thought abandoned me as my primary goals surfaced.

 _My friends cannot die!_ My mind cried. Somewhere in my subconscious, I could see the things Barry had been through. I saw Captain Cold and Heat Wave, Weather Wizard, Vandal Savage, and countless others. But I also saw what was yet to come, the pain he would suffer. How could I let him walk into that?

I didn't realize I was killing anyone until Annabeth dove straight at me and knocked me to the ground. "Stop, Percy. I'm safe. We're together."

Her voice was pleading and distraught at the same time. Luckily, it enough to shake me out of my reverie. "A-Annabeth?" I stuttered. I looked around at the destruction caused by our fight. When had the hurricane dissipated?

Kronos was dead on the ground. Even as I watched, his body crumbled to ash, and then Kronos was gone. Barry, too was on the ground, coughing as if he had a huge hairball. Bob was standing beside the two of us, looking grave.

"Bob!" I exclaimed. "Are you back for good?"

Bob lowered his massive silver head sadly. "Tartarus is cruel. He allows me to come back in my friends time of need, but once they are not in danger…" he trailed off watching the pile of Kronos's ashes. "I must go now."

"What?" Annabeth cried. I was still confused as to what the heck was happening. "Bob, no. You can't leave. Please don't!"

But is was too late. As we stood there, the voice of Tartarus ripped through our minds. Everyone heard it, even the mortals.

 _Return,_ it demanded. _Return to me,_ Bob _. The threat is neutralized. Do not forget, you swore on the River Styx._

"I'm coming, Tartarus," Bob spat. "Leave the mortals alone now. You will destroy their minds."

 _RETURN!_ Tartarus shouted. I clutched my head. I was sure my ears were bleeding.

We stared at Bob and reached out, desperate not to lose him, but his form grew more and more transparent. And then, he was gone.

For a while, Annabeth and I were pretty much um…let's just say…unable to make a coherent sentence. Eventually we got better.

"What happened?" I asked. "I don't really remember anything, just…fighting him, and then…something weird happened. I...I saw something… What was it?"

"You went nuclear, Seaweed Brain," Thalia growled. "Don't ever do that again."

"But, I don't understand. I didn't do anything at…oh, ow. Yeah, I did something. My head is killing me. What's up with Barry?"

"We have a lot of explaining to do," Thalia muttered angrily.

Before I could ask her more questions, she walked over to where Hazel was checking on Lavender. She said something I couldn't quite catch, and Hazel took Lavender's hand. Then they shadow-traveled away.

Back at STAR Labs, Annabeth explained everything that happened. When she was finished, I felt horrible. Not only did I attack Barry and almost kill him, but I went back on my promise to Annabeth. At least everything was okay now. Well, okay-ish.

Annabeth and Thalia were talking quietly in a corner. Cisco was doing something on his computer. Joe was at the police station, and Caitlin was at home. Barry was sitting in a swivel chair and spinning around and around, seemingly doing nothing. I figured Barry was the least likely to bite my head off, so went over to sit with him.

"Hey, Barry," I greeted him. "Listen, sorry about the whole," my eyes cut over to Cisco, " _Jedi chokehold_ thing."

"It's cool," Barry answered. "I once tried to kill my friend Oli-, I mean, Arrow. There was this metahuman that could make you irrationally angry."

"Yeah, but this was different," I reminded him. "I asked for that power, and when I got it, it was too much. I couldn't control it. I almost felt like I was my father. I guess, when I had all that power, I could only think about protecting my friends, mostly Annabeth. And anyone I didn't know was an enemy. What I'm trying to say is, I guess sometimes you just can't…lock up that darkness."

Barry's face instantly paled as I spoke. "What did you say?"

"Well, just now I said you can't lock up the darkness. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Nothing, nothing," Barry replied hurriedly. But I noticed Cisco watching me suspiciously as well.

"Okay…" I said slowly. Annabeth snapped her fingers to get my attention. When I turned she was gesturing a the security feeds, which showed a pack black mastiffs with glowing red eyes the size of pickup trucks. And telekhines. And dracaenae. Great. "Ah. Well, Barry, it was a pleasure working with you, but I think it's time for us to leave. Our quest is over, we did what we came here to do, and there is a small army of monsters outside your door."

"What?" Barry's head snapped back toward the monitor. As he saw the monsters grouped out there, his eyes widened.

Annabeth spoke up. "Yeah, so...I'm thinking Kronos's presence was holding them off. Now that he's dead, our demigod auras are being amplified by all the tech in this building." She glanced at Thalia and I. "Disadvantages of traveling with children of the Big Three. We could use a hand," Annabeth told Barry expectantly.

"Yeah, sure," Barry answered.

"Catch," I tossed him the Imperial gold dagger I had used on the _ventus_. "Just stab 'em with that, and they'll go right back to Tartarus."

My friends and I charged out, Barry in the lead (obviously). The four of us made short work of the monsters.

When the last hellhound exploded into golden dust, I approached Barry, who looked pretty weirded out, as was to be expected. "It okay," I reassured him, clapping my hand on his shoulder. "They're all gone. Hey, thanks. It would've taken a lot longer without you."

He started at that. "You mean…I didn't have to do that."

"Nope," I answered cheerfully. "But it sure happened a lot faster with your help. Again, thanks, but now we'd really better get going." I coughed. "That's your cue, Ares…" I trailed off.

"Aren't you going to go?" Barry asked.

"Oh, we are," I assured him. "It's just, we don't really know where Central City is. Ares transported us here."

Barry opened his mouth to ask more questions, but shut it abruptly as a huge motorcycle pulled up. I'll give you three guesses as to who it was.

If you guessed Ares, god of war, then you'd be correct!

"Jackson," he sneered. "Chase. Grace," he continued looking at each of my friends in turn. "And…" his gaze fell on Barry, "Allen."

"How do you know who I am?" Barry demanded.

"I'm a god, kid," Ares snarled. "I know everything.

Barry looked at me. "A god?"

"A god," I confirmed. "Barry, this is Ares, god of war. And world-class bonehead. He's how we got here."

"How many times to I have to threaten to kill you to get you to show some respect for me?" Ares growled.

"That's gonna take a long time," I smiled. Why was I smiling? In an attempt to tick Ares off. Guess what! It worked.

"Say your goodbyes, kid." Ares sneered. "And watch your back."

He snapped his fingers just as I was saying, "Bye, Barry…"

Annabeth, Thalia, and I saw nothing but black as Ares transported us away from Central City and our new friends, and back to Camp Half-Blood.


	14. Surprise!

**Author's Note: Hey, guys! I actually have a new chapter for you! I had originally planned to end there, but then I had this idea and I was like: I'm doing it! Anyways, read and review, and have fun!**

Barry's POV

I gave Percy, Annabeth, and Thalia a quick wave as they faded from sight. It was only then I noticed the crackling static in my ear. Ares must've messed with the comns so my friends couldn't hear. For a moment, I stood rooted to the ground, trying to process what I had been before running back up to the Cortex.

Once inside, I slid to a halt. For a few milliseconds, I waited with my senses sped up as fast as they could go. I knew what was coming. When I had prepared myself enough mentally, I allowed my senses to slow back down to normal speed.

As expected, once they could, my friends began asking questions. Cisco was the first with, "What happened? Who was that on the security feed?"

I removed my mask and rubbed the bridge of my nose before replying, "This is going to sound crazy, but-," I stopped. Fortunately (or unfortunately, I still can't decide which), I had been interrupted by someone materializing into the room. Who else would it be other than my new favorite freaky dude, Ares?

"Oh my G-," Caitlin started to yelp. She probably finished it too, but I was preoccupied with inwardly groaning and smacking my forehead. She had unwittingly just given the...well, _war god_ , the perfect opening for a pun. Naturally, he took it.

"Oh my god indeed," Ares said with a cruel smile. "Although _war_ god might be more appropriate."

As he was speaking, I examined his attire. Somehow, he had managed to change clothes in a matter of seconds, though that shouldn't have surprised me. Instead of the blood-red leather jacket, black muscle shirt, cargo pants, and combat boots he had been wearing outside, he was dressed in rather... _unusual_ army fatigues. They were dyed in vivid pinks and reds, though I'll just skip over that first one. I have a feeling Ares would bite my head off if I didn't. Literally. Anyways, the "camouflage" made it look like he was trying to hide on a blood-stained field.

Unfortunately, these were not the most disturbing things about Ares's ensemble. He also had a grossly oversized gun slung over his shoulders that looked like something out of _Aliens_. Around his waist there was a tricked up Glock nine millimeter with a laser sight and everything. I noticed that the safety was _not_ on. Ares had four extra magazines for the Glock already loaded; his pocket bulged, suggesting that more ammunition was stored there. There was a Smith  & Wesson tactical knife strapped around his right thigh and...were those…? Of course he had grenades.

Joe, who seemed awestruck, leaned over to Cisco and asked in a stage whisper, "Is it just me, or is that a buff version of General Eiling?"

Before I could tell my friends who it actually was and prevent them from being incinerated, Cisco taunted, "Look man, don't go all Clyde Mardin on us. Besides Jesus Christ, Superstar, do you really think you're what you say you are?" Cisco turned to Joe, Caitlin, and I, arms spread and a goofy smile on his face. His grin quickly faded as we all stared at him with blank expressions. "Has no one seen that movie?"

Ares snorted. "Jesus gets all the attention these days. I mean sure, he's the son of God with the whole fully God and fully man thing, but honestly! Ever since he came along, the Romans were all like, "Hey, I'd like to go to heaven! Who cares about Elysium?" Then that confounded son of Apollo, Andrew Lloyd Webber, just _had_ to write that musical about him. Thanks a lot, punk!"

My friends and I stared at Ares silently, mouths gaping. "I understood about half of what he just said," Caitlin stated.

Joe replied, "I understood less."

Cisco opened his mouth to say something else, but I cut him off. "Guys, this is Ares, _Greek god of war_."

My friends' expressions immediately changed. "Um, I'm...uh, so sorry Sir...Lord...War God...sir."

Ares gave him a evil grin. "No apologies necessary, Ramone. I'll let you off with a light sentence." We all breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe Ares just wanted Cisco's help with something. Everything would be fine. That's what we thought.

Until, that is, Ares waved his hand and turned the desk in the center of the Cortex, computers and all, into a loaded Civil War cannon with the fuse already lit. I immediately ran over and tried to extinguish the flame, but it wouldn't go out. Some kind of magic?

In desperation, I turned to Ares. "Hey, woah! Is that really necessary?" I tried to make eye contact with him, but he seemed preoccupied.

"No way, Zeus! You heard him. He insulted _all_ the gods, not just me. And stay out of this, Barnacle Beard! You too, you vlasfimia thea tis sofias!" He was quiet for a while before he suddenly shouted, "Fine, Thunderpants! If he's so _important,_ he can live!" The fuse went out immediately, less than a millimeter away from exploding.

Cisco let out a sigh of relief. "For a moment, I felt like that guy in _Gettysburg_ that walked right up to a cannon during Pickett's charge." There was no reaction. "Seriously? No one?"

Ares ignored him and kept talking as if nothing had happened. "Anyways, I've got some things you need to hear. Unfortunately, he needs to hear them too," Ares continued with a glare at Cisco. "Now, I'm no Oracle, but even I can see this much: this isn't the end."

"You mean we're going to see the demigods again?" Caitlin asked slowly.

Ares tilted his head from side to side. "Yes and no. Percy and Annabeth? Definitely. Thalia? Maybe. But trust me, it won't be the same next time. And they aren't the only ones you'll meet. Trust me it'll be fun. For me. I guess what I'm trying to say is...brace yourself."

With that final statement, Ares faded into nothing.

Percy's POV

"...then Bob, the Titan who saved us in Tartarus fought Kronos and I used my powers to choke Kronos and then I accidentally tried to kill Bar- Flash and then Bob had to go back to Tartarus and then Flash helped us kill a small army of monsters and then Ares transported us back here." That was me, in case you couldn't tell from the lack of grammar.

Chiron sat farther back in his chair. "Wow. Quite an adventure."

Annabeth, who had been sitting silently up until now finally spoke up. "Chiron, why didn't you tell us about the metahumans and the Flash before?"

He shifted uncomfortably and sighed. "The explosion happened around the time of the Giant War. You had enough on your plate."

"But after?" Annabeth persisted. "We should have been told. Why did you keep it a secret?"

Chiron gave Annabeth and I a fond smile. "Would you two honestly have left it alone? No," he continued without waiting for an answer. "You would have wanted to help the Flash. You never would've had any recovery time. It was for your own good."

"Then why tell us now?" I asked, surprising myself. "Was it because of Lavander?"

Chiron lowered his head slightly. "Yes. She is the daughter of my son Aristaios, the shepherd god. You must understand, I don't have many children. When I do, I do my best to take care of them. She came through Camp Half-Blood before either of you, as an undetermined. She spent a long time there, and started to wander down the same path as Luke. I, of course, knew her parentage, so one day I told her. It saved Lavender from becoming evil. When she was about college age, she moved to Central City. I let her go, but made her promise to call me if she needed help. Her abilities are quite unusual, especially as her father is a minor god. She can...sense when something is wrong in the demigod world, like a shepherd with his flock. When that son of Ares was killed, she felt it. She could also sense that the monster was only going after demigods, so she called me asking for help. I didn't think it would be as important as this, and I certainly didn't want to send you three. But once you had accepted the quest… There was nothing I could do."

I shook my head slowly. "We get it. And hey, at least one good thing came out of this."

"What's that?"

Annabeth and I exchanged radiant grins. "We know who the Flash is."

Chiron leaned forward. "Really? And who is he?"

"Oh, come on!" I complained. "Let us enjoy this one secret. You've kept enough from us."

Chiron gave us a tolerant smile. "I see. I'll figure it out. After all, I already have the first syllable of his name."

I sighed, turning to Annabeth. "I gave that to him, didn't I?"

Annabeth nodded. "Yep."

"Whatever. I'm gonna go get Rachel all caught up. Just let her know how the prophecy turned out."

"Okay. See ya."

I headed out of the Big House and entered Rachel's cave. "How's it going, Rachel?" However, before I could even see her, I heard a loud thump. I ran forward. "Are you okay?" When I found her, green smoke was swirling around her once more. I smacked my forehead. "Great."

 _The demigods and metahumans have become friends_

 _And one day they will meet again_

 _Hero and hero fight together_

 _Against a bout of horrible weather_

 _The saviors of the world must die_

 _And this time, the end is truly nigh_

Rachel stood suddenly as the mist (or is it Mist?) dissipated. "When did you get here, Percy?"

"Just now," I replied tiredly. "I wanted to let you know how he quest went."

"Oh. Well, have a seat and tell me about it. Is something wrong?" she asked when I didn't move.

"Hmm? Oh, no." I sat down next to her and talked with her for a while, but didn't mention the prophecy. No one needed to hear about it. Yet.

 **A/N: One more thing before I go. I just wanted to make this clear: I'm not trying to detract from God and Jesus. I myself am a Christian, so I love the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Anyways, peace out!**


	15. Coming Soon

**Hey guys! I'm back with another little blurb for you guys. I'm gonna tell you what's coming next, what I've already done, blah blah blah. And I just wanted to say: I'm completely cool with criticism! I mean, how else is my writing going to get better? But if you have a negative review, at5 least use your real username so I ask you how I can improve! I you just tell me you didn't like it and there's no way for me to contact you, how can I change so that you _do_ like it? Bah. Whatever. Just review for me, would ya?**

 _ **Truth be Told: What happened during Annabeth and Magnus's tell all**_ ** _conversation (according to me)? Find out here!_**

 ** _Heroes of the Past, Villains of Today: Uh...you should know what this is._**

 ** _Into a Cat!:_** _ **When a deranged cat goddess asks Percy and Annabeth for help finding Mr. Fluffernickel, our long-suffering demigod pair are cast into the world of Warriors. Where death and fighting prevail, how will Percy and Annabeth stay alive in their new home, and find their way back to their old one?**_

 **Soon to Come:**

 _ **Doctors, Demigods, Daleks, and...Supergirl?: Okay, this isn't actually one of my own stories, it's a story of a colleague of mine. Unfortunately, they don't have an account, so I'm publishing this for them. Please be kind in you reviews. Anyways, on to the summary!**_

 _ **Kara's day was pretty average. Until one of her co-workers was brutally murdered. Of course, it only gets weirder from then on, as a strange man in a blue box joins her...**_

 **Then, one of my own stories!**

 ** _Bad Timing: Magnus has already met Percy and Annabeth, as you know from my companion story "Truth be Told." Unfortunately for him, even though the world is ending, he still has to go on mundane quests every once in a while. One day, he runs into monsters unlike he's ever seen doing something completely unheard of...and he has a sneaking suspicion as to who can help him. Will the demigods be able to combine their powers successfully to stop a revenge-hungry spirit? Or are they already doomed to fail?_**

 ** _Double Vision: Percy's day is pretty average, for a demigod. Then, unexpectedly, he sees his father out in ocean. But upon trying to communicate with "Poseidon" telepathically, Percy discovers that he has no idea who he is. Then he meets_ his _Poseidon, at the same time. What the heck is going on? In this rather confusing (for both fandoms) crossover between PJO and Kate O'Hearn's_ Pegasus _, we see that Olympians are_ not _aliens. Wait, are they?_**


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